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The analysis of the concept of orbital allows us to argue that-in opposition to a recent position in philosophy of science-it is impossible to defend the autonomy of the chemical reality in regard to physical reality, appealing to the idea that there is a conceptual rupture among a chemical interpretation and a quantum interpretation of the concept. This is the case because there are not two different interpretations of the concept of orbital. On the contrary, the concept involved in structural chemistry and in quantum chemistry comes from quantum mechanics.